


Healing Hands

by BadassCompany



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A little, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bottom Dean Winchester, Castiel Deserves Better (Supernatural), Castiel Deserves Nice Things (Supernatural), Castiel Fixes Things (Supernatural), Castiel and Dean Winchester Reunion, Castiel and Dean Winchester Use Their Words, Communication, Dean Winchester Deserves Better, Dean Winchester Needs Love, Dean Winchester Needs Therapy, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Emotions, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Fix-It, Gay Sex, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, M/M, Pen Pals, Plot Twists, Secret Identity, Separations, Slow Burn, Therapy, Vamp Mimes Never Happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:29:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28816389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadassCompany/pseuds/BadassCompany
Summary: Castiel was meant for gentler things than war. For helping bright, hopeful, green things to grow. Dean Winchester's ending was meant to be happy: not getting torn apart by John Winchester's unfinished business.Seriously facing down the rest of his life, Dean decides to get therapy. It's the unconventional kind, because when have their lives ever been normal? Little does he know the man he's been writing to is an old friend.Happy ending, because Misha Collins said I could.On pause until I rewatch Supernatural and get feral again.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

Dean takes a deep breath. 

It's been months since they defeated Chuck, since they started taking fewer and fewer hunts. It's been months of Miracle licking his face to wake him up, of padding around the bunker in his robe and feeling at home and empty simultaneously. It's time. It's time to get a grip on all the pain that drives him to the bottle, that sets him off sparking rage at those closest to him. The pain that didn't have blood or scars to demand attention. The kind he's never tried to heal. 

It feels too big. It feels like he can't do it. But he wants to try. 

He isn't telling Sam, of course. That would mean admitting he'd been right about all the herbal tea and feelings crap all along. Not gonna happen. But in the quiet moments when Sam's out on his second run of the day, or the days he stays at Eileen's, Dean sets his resolve and starts looking. After a few days of phoning up old contacts and poring through the monster-and-magic-friendly parts of the internet, he finds someone good. _FaithlessHealer_ works through emails and specializes in paranormal counselling, both hunters and creatures. Evidently he appreciates the value of word play and cynicism, too: maybe it was the name that drew Dean in. Dean's glad it's remote: it'll give him time to think things, which he needs. Especially these days, his processing speed for the important stuff is about as fast as an Internet Explorer engine on a computer from 2003 running from a single AA battery. For instance, he's pretty sure Sam is going to bring up moving in with Eileen one of these days, and they'll have to talk about it. But he sets that aside for the time being. He clicks on _FaithlessHealer's_ contact link and runs a hand over his mouth, thinking where to begin.

*

Cas is alive, he knows that much. When Jack had let Amara go and they'd stood in the middle of that suddenly-busy street, she'd cupped Dean's cheek and said, "I brought him back for you." She'd smirked, then said the following words like an inside joke from a foreign language. "Go get him, tiger." Then they'd vanished, gone off to run the afterlife and to mingle with the raindrops or whatever (although Dean had a few suspicions Amara might wind up digging Reno again soon enough). 

But then, Cas hadn't come back. 

Dean had prayed himself hoarse every night, had left the Bunker unlocked, his phone on full charge begging for his texts to be answered. He'd driven the Impala around in the afternoons for long miles, pretending he wasn't looking for Cas. 

"What if something's happened to him?" Dean had asked Sam, frantic. 

"He's an angel. And the world is much safer now. I'm sure he's just working on something...or something..."

"But what if he's _not_?" Dean's voice had broken, so the sentence hung open. Wasn't what? Wasn't an angel? Wasn't safe? Wasn't coming back?

"Look, Dean, I know there's things you haven't told me about the night he...died. Might it have something to do with that?" Sam had asked after clearing his throat, hedging his bets.

Dean had snapped his jaw shut and ducked his head. "Yeah, maybe." 

That night he'd drank his weight in whiskey. Sitting on the loveseat in his bedroom, it sunk in. He scoffed. "He changed his mind." 

Well, fair enough. Bully for Cas. God knows he hadn't always treated him well. Taking that in, thinking about how many times he'd been rough with Cas, who had _loved_ him, when he could have been gentle, he started to sob into the back of the leather chair. 

He'd woken up to a note. His head didn't hurt. If he thought back hard enough, he could conjure up a dream of rustling feathers, of two fingers touching his forehead. He swallowed. He could still feel their imprint.

The note said: 

_Hello, Dean._

_I heard your prayers. Your calls, too. I'm sorry I didn't answer. I wasn't sure what things would be like between us, now that you were free of Chuck. And after everything I said._

_Although I wanted nothing more than to return to your side, I can't see a place for myself there. It's my hope that you and Sam will eventually quit hunting. When you do, I want everything for you that you never had...but I don't fit into any version of an "apple pie life."_

_Besides, there's Jack, and there's heaven. I have a real chance to redeem myself: not to you, or God, but to myself. I'm rebuilding it, Dean: the way it should have been. My years living with humanity – you and Sam – taught me much I can put to use. Do you know no one had bothered to add bees before? Without them, the whole food chain would collapse, starting with the flowers – and somehow the angels just forgot. Anyway._

_I got my wings back. I've been flying. Over the East Coast, mostly, so I wouldn't see you._

_Tonight, though, your longing was fierce. And your prayers were...chaotic, to say the least._

_The war is over. We were comrades-in-arms. But even if you could love me, what was I thinking? An eldritch being the size of the Chrysler building playing house with the Righteous Man. You could never see my true form without your eyes burning out, and I would stay unchanging while I watched you age and die. Then I would once more be alone._

_It's better for your to live your life, and me to return to something like what I once was. I may watch over you, from time to time. If it doesn't make you uncomfortable._

_Dean – it's time for you to wake up. Out of the nightmare in which we met, into your new life. The monsters are going home._

_Jack says 'hi.'_

_Castiel._

* 

Dean tries praying again, but Cas doesn't answer. He thinks if he could just _see_ the angel there in front of him, sex hair and rumpled trench coat and all, his throat would work its way open and he'd be able to say I'd rather have you. You are my apple pie life. You're what I pictured waiting for me at the end of the line. 

He stops drinking as much. The lines between Sam's eyebrows when he scans Dean for dark circles smooth out. Dean feels like he got dumped without ever being kissed, but he swallows his hurt and tries to feel the same elegant readiness to separate Cas had evidently found. He doesn't miss that the note was signed 'Castiel,' not Cas, certainly not 'Love, Cas.' He replaces the poison that tries to creep up, the sense of betrayal, with a certain wistfulness. He pictures Cas flying again. Cas, happily building heaven. 

It seemed everything Cas had said was true. That was why it was so hard to argue against the note. The monsters _were_ going home: fewer and fewer hunts were cropping up. A few phone-calls to other hunters had confirmed it was happening everywhere. And Cas was still looking out for Dean: his nightmares just vanished one night. The black ooze that had haunted his dreams since Cas was taken was gone. He dreamt only occasionally, of simple things like fishing. And once when he was working under the Impala and the old suspension cables holding her up had succumbed to rust and snapped, the car that should have come down to crush his ribcage teleported into the next parking space over. 

He'd blinked. "Cas?" into the open air. No answer. Right. Moving on. 

* 

Miracle nuzzles at his knee. "Yeah, you're right, girl. It is time for a walk." 

He'd used a pseudonym. It was better if nothing he said got linked back to his name. He thought back to one of the books he'd read in high school, with a crazy driver always pushing through the night and a father always off in jail. The character's name had been Dean, but the real man he was based on was called Neal. He capped it off with a Star Wars reference - a smidge of Han Solo never hurt anyone. With a small, satisfied smile at the message he'd just sent _FaithlessHealer_ , Dean closes his laptop and walks out into the great blue evening. It's a start.

**NealSolo67 to FaithlessHealer:**

**Hey. I've never done this before, so I'm not too strong on the protocol. I'm a hunter on the verge of hanging up my boots, and I guess I've realised no one retires too easy with open wounds still bleeding.**

**Uh, the wounds are metaphorical. In case that wasn't clear.**

**Anyway, there's a lot of shit I never thought through. Maybe I should have, done everyone around me a favour. Whatever. I'm here because my family saved me, some of 'em even when I thought I didn't deserve it. I guess I want to save myself and move on from all the crap in my head.**

**This isn't easy for me, by the way. But let me know how this works, so I can...I don't know...get this show on the road?**

**Neal**


	2. Chapter 2

Cas is as close to happy as he can be.

Of course, he remembers what it was like to be really, truly happy. Telling Dean those words, perfectly made to strike at the core of his self-doubt. Seeing some fragment of Dean start to believe it. Finally speaking his truth.

But life isn’t always happiness. Cas knows this, and he carries on the best he can.

When she’d brought him back, Amara had said, “I always liked you. Cracked chassis and all. Maybe I liked you because Dean liked you, and he released me into this world. But you were an angel and you ripped up the script, but you still cared. Not like Lucifer. Whatever you do, I know it will be good.”

As she seeps away in soft curls of black smoke, Cas feels the ache from God’s betrayal and absence subside a little. The new cosmic caretakers will do a good job.

After he finishes stretching his wings over the whole of the Eastern seaboard, he returns to Heaven. He doesn’t let himself speak to Dean, not after the note, though he permits himself to look in on the hunter occasionally. To be his “guardian angel.” He can’t get too close, can’t let his yearning get too strong. It had been hard enough turning away that day he’d watched Dean rake leaves, and then he’d had a doomed mission and a demon to lead him away. In this newfound era of peace, he’s not sure what’s meant to hold him away from Dean other than the knowledge that his heart will get wrecked, one way or another.

Dean prays less frequently now. The tone of the messages becomes less tortured, and all pleas to return drop. If something really funny has happened, Dean drops him a line. And sometimes at the end of the day, Dean just says, ‘Thanks, man. Thank you for everything.’

They’re moving on. That’s what grown-ups do, right? Every piece of media that Metatron downloaded into his mind tells him it’s true. 

So, he makes the gardens grow. He adds the bees. The birds, too. He lets the souls of long-lost friends reunite in brand-new forests they remember from Earth. He and Jack work side by side. Sometimes, he visits Earth. He doesn’t go to Dean. He goes to new places, and watches like he did when he was stationed there. He watches the people and feels the wind on his skin. He comes to love the ocean.

It’s on these visits that he realizes how much pain these humans hold. He listens to their thoughts, and to the quiet throwaway remarks they trade about wanting to end things over coffee, brushed away the next second like the crumbs on their napkins. He wants to help.

Jack is strict on the no interference policy, though. There will be no showing his wings to restore the broken’s faith, no alternate timelines created to show how much difference one life can make. Cas understands why Meg called him Clarence, now. He _likes_ that movie, in a way he likes few others, though he can’t watch it without seeing Dean in insouciant young George Bailey.

He determines to help in the most human way he knows how. He goes to a careers service, and says that he wants to help people. They mention counselling to him. He likes the sound of it, though he’s not sure who he is to give advice to anyone. The woman looks at him kindly over the top of her hipster glasses, and says, “Those that can help best have often been at rock bottom themselves, once. It helps you understand them, and gives you that fire to work.”

If there’s one thing Castiel needs, it’s something to do with the burning love still inside him. He reads every book he can on psychotherapy and creates a profile online. He wants to help people on the fringes of the paranormal world. They won’t have much scope to come into an office, or much trust for anyone accredited, whether they’re a vampire who would burst into flames in the sun or a hunter with trust issues.

He chooses the name Faithless Healer because it seems like something that might make Dean laugh. And because he remembers how when he lost faith in his Father, his God, something had carried him on anyway. Some inextricable grace in the universe that bore no name had kept him alive. And because his one-time wife, Daphne, had told him he had healing hands.

More people than he’d expected get in contact with him. He answers the emails dutifully, asking questions to help them understand themselves, proscribing care where it was lacking, offering what comfort and wisdom he can.

One day, he gets a message that sounds so much like Dean he can’t quite breathe. NealSolo. Why does the number sixty-seven ring a bell? He shakes his head. It’s not Dean. It could be anyone. Whoever it is, though, he can help them. He starts to types back.

**Hello.**

**Thank you for reaching out. I know how difficult it can be and want to assure you that you’ve taken the first step towards being whole again.**

**Well, I usually begin by asking patients to send me a short summary of what they perceive to be the significant events in their lives. Stepping stones, if you’ll have it. It provides a scaffold for me to work with when we get into exploring whatever you’d like to talk about. We can jump around between topics: most people have a lot of things on their plates, and don’t realise how it’s connected together like a web.**

**For hunters, I know life is often chaotic and doesn’t fall neatly into the usual milestones one might expect: high school, college, jobs, marriage. Don’t think too hard about the exercise, just write what comes to mind.**

**I look forward to getting to know you.**

**Yours,  
** **FaithlessHealer**

He hasn’t said anything out of the ordinary in the message, but something about it drains him. Unexpectedly, he wishes someone was there to hold him. It’s okay. He’s read all the books, after all: he knows the road to healing is rarely smooth or straight. He returns to heaven, to a secluded glade. It looks a lot like the place Dean crawled out of his grave after Castiel resurrected him. The sun beats down into the centre of it, and with a flick of his fingers, Cas is naked except for his trenchcoat. Sunbathing. He’d caught Amara at it once, by a lush hot spring.

“You should try it sometime,” she’d said lightly, before waving her hand to banish him.

He sunk down onto the grass, which smelled just like real grass in summer. He let the earth hold him and the sun warm him and closed his eyes. Bees droned somewhere out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting into Cas' angle of things! Soon we'll be onto the nitty gritty of Dean's feelings and them slowly drawing back towards one another again. I'd love to hear from you if you're reading <3

**Author's Note:**

> This is a personal fic for me. It grew out of me finally processing my own unresolved emotions, and realizing how heavily queer little 14yo me identified with Dean Winchester back in the day. With every day since the finale-that-never-was, I've gotten more enraged at how dirty they did Dean (Cas, too). They deserved to heal, and if I have to move heaven and hell to do it, they will. 
> 
> I'm also seriously pursuing writing original fiction. It's always been my dream, and the encouragement I received from readers when I was starting out on this site over five years ago helped me so much to see it as a reality. Thank you, everyone who's read my pieces and seen something in them. 
> 
> "Even when the story is written, you can write you own ending." – M.C.
> 
> P.S. I don't recommend question for a significant other to therapize all the pain out of you. But as this isn't real life, well...


End file.
